Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Год выпуска: 1994, ISBN: 1994, Издательство: Tor, Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Memory and Dream: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Memory and Dream»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Dreams have magic in them. A few of us have the power to make that magic real. A masterwork by one of fantasy’s most gifted storytellers: a magnificent tale of love, courage, and the power of imagination to transform our lives.
This is the novel Charles de Lint’s many devoted readers have been waiting for, the compelling odyssey of a young woman whose visionary art frees ancient spirits into the modern world.
Isabelle Copley’s visionary art frees ancient spirits. As the young student of the cruel, brilliant artist Vincent Rushkin, she discovered she could paint images so vividly real they brought her wildest fantasies to life. But when the forces she unleashed brought tragedy to those she loved, she turned her back on her talent—and on her dreams.
Now, twenty years later, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied, and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams and bring the magic back to life.
Charles de Lint’s skillful blending of contemporary urban characters and settings with traditional folk magic has made him one of the most popular fantasy authors of his generation.
Memory and Dream is the most ambitious work of de Lint’s extraordinary career, an exciting tale of epic scope that explores the power our dreams have to transform the world-or make it a waking nightmare.
It is the story of Isabelle Copley, a young artist who once lived in the bohemian quarter of the northern city of Newford. As a student of Vincent Rushkin, a cruel but gifted painter, she discovered an awesome power—to craft images so real that they came to life. With her paintbrush she called into being the wild spirits of the wood, made her dreams come true with canvas and paint. But when the forces she unleashed brought unexpected tragedy to those she loved, she ran away from Newford, turning her back on her talent-and on her dreams.
Now, twenty years later, the power of Newford has reached out to draw her back. To fulfill a promise to a long-dead friend, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied, and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. She must accept her true feelings for her newfound lover John Sweetgrass, a handsome young Native American who is the image of her most intense imaginings. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams, and bring the magic back to life.
Charles de Lint - Novelist, poet, artist, and musician, Charles de Lint is one of the most influential fantasy writers of his generation. With such warmly received works as Spiritwalk, Moonheart, Into the Green, and Dreams Underfoot(also set in the town of Newford), he has earned high praise from readers and critics alike, Booklist has called him “one of the most original fantasy writers currently working.” And The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction writes: “De Lint shows us that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep, mythic literature of our time.” De Lint and his wife MaryAnn Harris, an artist, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where they are both Celtic musicians in the band Jump At the Sun. “For more than a decade, Charles de Lint has enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s leading fantasists.”— “A superb storyteller. De Lint has a flair for tales that blur the lines between the mundane world and magical reality, and nowhere is this more evident than in his fictional city of Newford.”— “De Lint can feel the beauty of the ancient lore he is evoking. He can well imagine what it would be like to conjure the Other World among ancient standing stones. His characters have a certain fallibility that makes them multidimensional and human, and his settings are gritty. This is no Disneylike Never-Never Land. Life and death in de Lint’s world are more than a matter of a few words or a magic crystal.” – “There is no better writer now than Charles de Lint at bringing out the magic in contemporary life ... The best of the post-Stephen King contemporary fantasists, the one with the clearest vision of the possibilities of magic in a modern setting.” — “In the fictional city of Newford, replete with the brutal realities of modern urban life, de Lint’s characters encounter magic in strange and unexpected places ... In de Lint’s capable hands, modern fantasy becomes something other than escapism. It becomes folk song, the stuff of urban myth.” —

Memory and Dream — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Memory and Dream», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

“His name?” the girl said. “It’s, um ... Alan. Alan Grant.”

Rolanda recovered her equilibrium and gave her a sharp look. “Alan Grant the publisher?”

“That’s right,” Cosette said with a bright smile. “He does make books, doesn’t he?”

Rolanda was shocked. She knew Alan. Everybody at the NCF did. He was one of the Foundation’s biggest supporters. He was also old enough to be this girl’s father.

“And he’s your ‘boyfriend’?” she asked.

“Well, sort of,” Cosette said. “I only met him last night and I know he likes Isabelle better than he likes me, but she’s not interested in having a boyfriend and I am.”

Relief flooded Rolanda when she realized that it was the girl who was fixated on Alan, not the other way around.

“I think he thinks I’m too young,” Cosette added.

“Perhaps you are ... for Alan, I mean.”

“I’m much older than I look,” Cosette assured her.

She sat down on the floor and tried on various shoes.

“Are you hungry?” Rolanda asked.

Cosette shook her head. “I don’t really need to eat.”

More warning bells went off in Rolanda’s head. While Cosette was thin, it wasn’t the same sort of thinness that Rolanda usually associated with eating disorders, but looks could always be deceiving.

“Why’s that?” she asked, maintaining that studied nonchalance she always assumed with clients when she wanted information, but didn’t want to scare them off.

Cosette shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just the way we are. We don’t need to sleep, either, and we never dream.”

“We?”

Cosette ignored her for a moment. Having found a pair of clunky leather shoes that she appeared to like, she was now trying on sweaters. She finished pulling one over her head before replying.

“My ... family, I guess you’d call them.”

“Do they live in the city?”

“All over, really. I don’t really keep track of them.”

“Why’s that?” Rolanda asked.

Cosette gave her another of those odd looks that had so unsteadied Rolanda earlier. She took off the sweater she’d been trying on and hoisted herself onto the table, where she sat with her legs dangling and the sweater held against her chest.

“Why do you want to know so much about me?” she asked.

“I’m just interested in you.”

Cosette nodded with slow understanding. “That’s not really it at all. You think I’m like the other kids who come here, don’t you? That I’m in trouble and I need help.”

“Do you?” Rolanda asked. “Need help, I mean.”

“Oh, no,” Cosette said with a merry laugh.

Rolanda was struck with a sense of incongruity at the sound of Cosette’s mirth until she realized why the girl’s laughter sounded out of place: the laughter was genuine, unforced—an alien sound in this place.

When children laughed here, it was not because they were happy or amused. Theirs was a laughter that grew out of stress, or relief, or some combination of the two.

Cosette hopped down from the table. “Thanks for the shoes and the sweater,” she said. “I don’t really need them, but I like getting presents,” she added over her shoulder as she left the room.

“You’re welcome,” Rolanda began.

She was caught off guard by the girl’s sudden departure, but by the time she had followed her out into the hallway, Cosette was already at the far end of the hall, opening the front door.

“Wait!” Rolanda called.

Cosette turned to give her a wave and stepped outside. Rolanda broke into a trot, reaching the front door just before it closed. When she stepped out onto the porch, the girl was gone. She wasn’t on the walkway, or on the sidewalk, or anywhere up or down the street.

That eerie feeling returned, the vague sense of vertigo, as if the ground underfoot had abruptly become uneven or spongy, and Rolanda had to steady herself against one of the porch’s supports. It was as though Cosette had never existed in the first place, disappearing as mysteriously as she had appeared in the office a few minutes ago.

“Who were you?” Rolanda asked the empty street.

She wasn’t expecting a reply, but just for a moment, she thought she heard Cosette’s laughter again, sweet and chiming like tiny bells, echoing not in her ear, but in her mind. She stood there on the porch for a long time, leaning against the support pole, before she finally went back inside and closed the door behind her.

VI

I guess I really messed up this time, didn’t I?” Marisa said.

Alan was sitting at the kitchen table, staring off through the window at the patchwork row of backyards that the view presented. He hadn’t heard Marisa come in and he jumped at the sound of her voice, scraping the legs of his chair against the floor as he half rose from his seat. He sat back down again when he saw Marisa standing in the doorway, still wearing his shirt. It had never looked half so good on him. Her hair was a little more disheveled than it had been earlier. Her eyes were still swollen, the rings under them darker. Alan’s heart went out to her.

“Pull up a chair,” he said. “Do you want something to drink? Coffee, maybe, or some tea?”

“Tea, please. Coffee would just make me feel even more jangly than I already am.”

Alan filled the kettle and put it on the stove. He rummaged around in the cupboard and came up with a box of Bengal Spice that still had a couple of bags left in it. Marisa sat at the table, hugging herself, her hands lost in the long sleeves of the borrowed shirt. Neither of them spoke until Alan finally brought two mugs to the table, steam wafting up from the rims of each. Alan wanted to say something to show his support for what Marisa was going through, but nothing had changed since he’d sat with her in the living room earlier. He couldn’t promise that things were going to get better. And while he was certainly willing to give her a place to stay, he couldn’t promise her anything else beyond his friendship. Even if Isabelle hadn’t been in the picture, thinking of Marisa as a friend for so long had eroded his desire for their relationship to become something more. At least he thought it had. Seeing her sitting there across from him in his shirt, barefoot and without any makeup, stirred something in him that he hadn’t felt for a while, but he didn’t feel right about bringing it up now. It wouldn’t be fair—not unless he was sure.

Marisa was the one who broke the silence. “What did Isabelle say about the project?” she asked.

“She’s going to do it.”

“That’s great. Did you call Gary to give him the news?”

Gary Posner was the editor at the paperback house who was interested in acquiring the rights to the omnibus. Thinking of him brought up a whole other set of worries for Alan.

“I called him while you were sleeping, but he’s not exactly thrilled with the news.”

“How can he not be?”

“Oh, he loves the idea that Isabelle’s on board,” Alan explained. “It’s Margaret Mully that concerns him. He’s afraid that if she appeals, it’ll put the whole thing on hold again. He says he can’t afford to commit until we have something from her in writing that says she won’t interfere with the project—preferably something notarized.”

“But you’ll never get that from her.”

Alan nodded glumly. “Tell me about it.”

“So what happens now?”

“We go ahead with our edition.”

“But you were counting on the paperback money ....”

“Only for the Foundation,” Alan said. “As the bank account stands now, we can afford to publish the East Street Press edition—especially since Isabelle’s donating the use of her art to the project.”

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Memory and Dream»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Memory and Dream» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Memory and Dream»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Memory and Dream» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x